Cliff Diving
by Ignorant Sparrow
Summary: she leaped forward, diving head first to the deep blue mass, ready to embrace her tired self mercifully. In about 15 years, Lin was able to let it all go and smile with contentment
1. Chapter 1

All eyes were on Korra's departing form. Lin took the chance to slip through the back door and walk out of Katara's home, unnoticed and invisible. But one pair of eyes was following her, one unsure pair of exhausted eyes.

_I'm sorry, but there's nothing else I can do…_

Katara's words were reverberating in Lin's empty head as she let her feet carry her weary body towards the cliff side. About quater an hour later she stood at the edge of the cliff, facing the cold ocean, feeling the freezing breeze, mind numb and empty, unsure of where everything had lead her and where would she go from here.

"Chief Beifong, NO!" Someone let out a terrified scream. "Please Don't!"

Lin turned to find Pema sprinting towards her, hand outstretched and features terrified. Lin blinked as Pema closed the space between them in an alarming speed and grabbed her by upper arm to drag Lin backwards, which made both the women lose balance and fell on their backs.

Lin sat up as Pema kneed beside her, still keeping a tight hold to Lin's arm. Lin blinked again, face empty, yet eyes confused.

"What were you thinking?" Pema spat, giving Lin a little shake. "It's a sin, a sin I tell you. I realize how difficult it must be, but this?!"

Lin frowned. What is Pema ranting about? and most surprisingly, why? "wazgoingon?" Lin mumbled, trying to shrug off the younger woman's grasp. But Pema didn't let go.

"Think about what you are doing. You are one of the bravest people I know. This is beneath you! Is this the example you're going to set for Meelo? You are his hero!" Pema kept shaking Lin, with every word she practically yelled.

"Calm down, Pema!" Lin raised her voice. "And let go of me!"

"No!" Pema spat. "You are not going anywhere but coming with me to the house".

Lin was utterly confused. Why was Pema acting like this? Why was she ranting as if to make up for the last sixteen years' worth silence between them? And what on earth is she talking about? Was it a crime to find some solitude and grieve her loss in her own way?

Lin stood up. Pema did too. "I'd like it if you'd give me some space" Lin told Pema, stepping back few feet and freeing her arm from Pema's iron grip. "I need to do something by my own. Besides, should you be out here? Didn't Katara tell you to rest?"

"I'm going nowhere, Lin" Pema took a step forward. "If you don't go home with me, I'm calling reinforcements. I am not going to let you kill yourself."

Lin blinked, several times. She gestured her hand towards herself and then to the cliff, and made a jumping gesture, a break neck sign and gave Pema an inquisitive brow.

"Well?" Pema got hold to her armor again, just in case. "Weren't you?"

Lin found herself at a loss of words. The situation and circumstances were utterly irrational. Herself and Pema, in a middle of a dramatic conversation, in an unlikely time!

Lin breathed in several times before she spoke again. She didn't want to offend Pema, who at least took the trouble to worry about her.

"No." Lin said as calmly as possible. "If it helps to calm your nerves, I'll give you my word on that." She said, slowly pulling her arm out of Pema's grip. "I'm here for some lone time and I'd appreciate if you could help me with that."

Pema did not look convinced. However, she let go of Lin and took a few steps back.

"Please go home and rest" Lin said gesturing towards the direction of Katara's house. "I'll be fine."

Pema gave her an uncertain look. "It's freezing. I'm going to send someone to collect you in fifteen minutes." She said turning on her heels.

Lin stared in disbelief at Pema's departing form. "I'm not five, thank you very much." She said just loud enough for the other woman to hear. Pema neglected her.

Lin watched as Pema retreated towards the house, looking back at her several times as she did. The armor Lin wore came loose as soon as Pema disappeared around the corner. Lin pulled the latches those bound it together and let it fall off her torso leaving the earthbender shiver slightly on where she stood. Lin did not bother taking the boots off as she walked towards the cliff once again. The ocean beneath looked strangely calm and inviting. Lin breathed in deeply for several times before she leaped forward, diving head first to the deep blue mass, ready to embrace her tired self mercifully. Wind rushed past her entire self brushing away the stinging spread over her body from many cuts and bruises those were left neglected. In about 15 years, Lin was able to let it all go and smile with contentment.


	2. Chapter 2

Tenzin saw Pema emerged around the polar bear–dog paddocks. He walked forward asking her why she was outside. Pema panted a little before she answered.

"I followed Lin." She said taking his arm. "We had a little chat"

Tenzin gave her a look. "About?"

"Don't worry, I just wanted to make sure she's alright." Pema answered ascending the steps to Katara's house. "I was freaked out a little to find her standing by the cliff side."

Katara heard them and decided to join the discussion to distract her from the day's unfortunate issues. "Who?"

"Lin" Pema said, sitting down. "It was embarrassing really. I thought she's gonna- oh how silly of me to assume such a thing."

"She's gonna what?" Tenzin inquired, exchanging a look with Katara.

"Well, after all that happened," Pema said, dragging a hand down her tired face. "I thought it might be unbearable for Lin, I mean bending must means a lot to a master bender like her. So, I thought she might jump off the cliff and-" Pema let out a little chuckle. "Now that I think of it, it's a silly thought really, it's Lin. She's not that weak."

Tenzin and Katara were looking at each other with horror struck expressions. Pema look from the son to the mother trying to convince herself otherwise. "You don't think she'd-?" She asked, suddenly standing up.

"Mom, you don't think she's at the 'Lin's Peak', do you?" Tenzin said, ignoring Pema and take a hold on to Katara's shoulder.

"Pema, tell us where she was, exactly" Katara asked her daughter-in-law.

"Half a mile away from here, near the stupa." Pema said. "What's Lin's Peak? You don't think she's-?"

Tenzin did not wait to answer his wife's question. He was gone in a flash. Katara made a phone call to Kya, "Lin's at the Lin's Peak. Tenzin went. Go there, she'll need you too."

Pema was confused. She grabbed Katara's shoulder, needing an explanation. "Lin promised me she won't do anything stupid. Why are you all so panicked? She insisted that I let her have some lone time and she has something to do by herself." She sounded worried. "I shouldn't have taken her word seriously."

Pema, she's not gonna kill herself," Katara assured. "At least that is not her intension." The addition was scary in Pema's ears.

"What do you mean?" Pema asked. Suddenly she felt so childish about leaving a women who lost it all, by a cliff side all by herself, just because she was told to leave.

"Lin used to go cliff diving whenever she was upset. It made her 'make sense of things'" Katara quoted. "It was always the same peak. That's why we call it the 'Lin's Peak." She exhaled worriedly. There used to be an under-water tunnel leading to a small pool. Lin loved it there. But we don't know if the tunnel has collapsed or not. It's been around 17 years since Lin last visited and stayed." Katara finished. "This child..." She said, dropping down to a chair nearby, and burying her face in her arms.


	3. Chapter 3

Lin panted, shivering violently by the underground pool. The only other mean of getting out of there was the small opening about 50 feet above, provided that one could fly of course. The tunnel had seemed about to collapse but Lin hadn't care. She had swum through the tunnel, testing her luck. Lin had been so sure that the pool will provide her with the much needed comfort as it used to do.

Funny thing was, it did not. It was nothing but a pool now. Lin didn't remember it to be this cold and uninviting. The only thing good about it was the nostalgia. She did not have the strength to swim back, nor could she fly. So, Lin decided it's time she rest a while. Take a nap may be? So what if she never awake? It's not like she have unfinished business up there or someone to live for. She has lived a full life, not perfect yet full. So, death is the next greatest adventure, right? She remembered Iroh, saying that himself.

As her eyelids slowly dropped, a figure peeped down the small opening above. It descended jumping ten feet down in one single leap. One could have simply mistaken him for flying. Only he was not. Tenzin jumped down and ran towards Lin's side. He pulled her up and patted her face few times.

"Lin, Stay with me, LIN!" He shouted.

Lin opened her tired eyes to direct her hazy gaze at him. "Oh' hey, Boldy!" She whispered. "The tunnel's still there"

Tenzin did not waste time pulling his outer robe and wrapping Lin in it. "I'm gonna get you out" Tenzin said, wrapping his arms around her in a futile attempt to warm her almost frozen body. "You'll be OK"

"But I like it here." Lin replied through shattering teeth, her eyelids closing again.

"Lin! LIN" Tenzin shouted again, shaking her a little. "You can't fall asleep"

But Lin was not listening. She was looking peaceful. Tenzin watched her scarcely inhaling through parted lips for a fraction of a second before he decided what to do. 'You need to do it to save her life' He convinced himself. 'Or else, she'll die'

Lin felt a pair of lips on her own. Tenzing was kissing her. Gently, yet firmly, he was kissing her full on lips. Color rose to Lin's face as this realization hit her. She felt the effect of his kiss warming up her entire self. She did not kiss him back. She did not want to. But she did not have the strength to push him off of her. So, she just lay there as he took advantage of her parted lips and deepen the kiss. She lay there as a rag doll, feeling nothing.

Tenzin's mind was numb. The kiss was meant to save Lin. But he was falling in to the kiss as if they were kissing for the first time. He felt how much he loved kissing the woman in his arms, the woman who did not even respond. He was kissing her with passion so real that for a moment he forgot he was married to another. He was married to another! How can he yarn for more of this kissing? Why would he? Tenzin stopped. Lin was staring at him with nothing but blankness. She averted her gaze to stare at the pool.

Tenzin tighten the robe around her body before he picked her up without a word. "I'm getting you out of here." He mumbled, bending the air beneath his feet to lift them up. With six long leaps he surfaced about hundred feet away from the Lin's peek.

He saw Kya standing at the Lin's peak, ready to leap in. "Kya!" He shouted. "I got her"

Thanking the spirits Kya ran towards her younger brother. "Lin was in his arms, scooted. He set her down for Kya to attend.

"She's gonna need some intense sauna. She's freezing." Kya said taking in Lin's temperature. Lin opened her eyes just enough to look at the healer who gave her a death glare. "Mom is not gonna be happy I did this" Kya told her and without warning she slapped her friend, hard and fast. "What were you thinking you brat!"


	4. Chapter 4

It has been a day since Lin's cliff diving. Katara had done her magic to get her out of danger zone. Kya had mercilessly bashed Lin's irresponsible behavior until Katara told her off. "That's enough Kya. Lin needs to rest." She had told her daughter while she fixed Lin with a stare that had been a mixture of disapproval and relief. Tenzin however, stayed well out of the healing room for the entire time. Once Lin was awake after a reviving rest, it was Pema who she found, sitting by her bed, cleaning her face with a hot towel.

"I thought you are a woman of your word!" Pema said quietly, setting down a tray of breakfast she has brought for Lin on the bed side cabinet.

"Pardon me?" Lin tried to sit up, looking at Pema indifferently. She was quickly helped by the motherly acolyte, who was wearing a slight frown.

"You gave me your word Lin." Pema said. "You promised you wouldn't jump. And yet, you did."

"Look" Lin started awkwardly. She didn't know how to handle the situation. "I'm sorry if it shook you, but I kept my word. It wasn't my intention to suicide" She finished lamely.

Pema gave Lin a look, which Lin had never received, even from Kya or Katara. But Lin did not have to endure the look for much longer as Tenzin knocked the already opened door.

He walked in to the healing room looking tentative and hesitant. Lin stared back at him with blank eyes.

"How are you Lin?" He asked, making sure to keep his distance. Pema seemed torn between staying put and leaving. After a few seconds of wavering she decided on the latter and stood up. "Meelo's been asking for you. Is it OK if I send him in couple of hours?" She asked Lin.

Lin hesitated. "Um- yeah. It's fine." She said reluctantly. With that, Pema left the room, placing a hand on Tenzin's forearm as she left. Tenzin watched Pema close the door behind her and turned to face Lin once again.

"Lin, I was-" He started. "I- I- You gave me a fright"

Lin quietly watched him stammer. She didn't need to know why he kissed her or to thank him for saving her life. It wasn't his business anyway.

"Look, I'm- I thought you might die- I needed to keep you warm-"

"Tenzin" Lin spoke in a low voice. "It's fine. You think what you thought was right."

Tenzin buried his face in his hands, resting his elbows on Lin's bed. "It scares me," He admitted. "It scares me how much I love you still."

Lin drew out a hesitant hand and gently patted his forearm. "I'm sorry Tenzin, I didn't plan this." She said. She had felt how earnest Tenzin was in his kiss and he still felt for her. The funny thing was she hadn't felt anything back then. Everything has gone nub. Not even Tenzin's love had been able to make the numbness go away.

"I am in love with you and I will never stop." Tenzin replied in a shaky voice.

"I am not." Lin said. "Back at the pool, when you- I felt nothing." She went on truthfully. "All seemed volatile without my bending. So, I now know, I've made the right choice all those years ago, even without acknowledging it." She sighed. "Thank you for breaking up with me. And thank you for making me realize this."

Tenzin felt his heart been crushed in to millions of pieces. He had not realized how much he loved her until yesterday. He had not stopped to think, not even for a second. He had assumed that he was perfectly happy in his little world that he had created for himself. He watched the woman he loved, slowly getting off the bed and walking out of the room, willingly this time.


End file.
